Senate Budget Deal Includes Program Funding, 10 Year CHIP Extension

February 2018 ~

On February 7th, the Senate released the finalized Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. The two year, $400 billion budget deal includes increased funding for several health programs, a 10 year extension to CHIP, and the repeal of the Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board.

The 2018 budget deal will allocate funding for all expired Medicare programs (also known as extenders) and includes an increase of $7 billion in funding community health centers over the next two years ($3.8 billion for fiscal 2018 and $4 billion for 2019).

In addition to the six years of funding approved for the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) in January, the Budget Act includes an additional four-year extension for the program. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) anticipates the additional extension will save the federal government $6 billion.

The spending deal includes additional delay for payment cuts to Disproportionate Share Hospitals mandated by the Affordable Care Act (ACA).

As well, the budget deal also calls for repeal of the panel initially intended to find savings for the program and hold down Medicare payments if the program’s spending exceeded a certain threshold. The Medicare Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) was estimated to cost approximately $17.5 billion and had never held any appointed members.

The deal also calls for spending cap raise to help free-up $6 billion in funding toward combating the opioid epidemic and funding disaster relief for states and territories, as well as includes an additional $2 billion in funding for the National Institutes of Health and $495 million for the National Health Service Corps.

 

 

Source(s): Modern Healthcare; Becker’s Hospital Review; Kaiser Health News; Reuters; Appropriations.senate.gov;

 

 

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